Five Times Claire Doesn't Want to Live Forever
by Rachel J. Lupin
Summary: Just as she never really doubted Hiro's intentions, she never really doubts Adam's. Hiro/Claire. Adam/Claire.


A/N: Many, many thanks to falulatonks/mondleringmoofoot for her help with this. Written for **prettystickers** at LJ. All characters and lyrics are the the properties of their respective owners. Lyrics quoted belong to Queen, Anberlin, Rilo Kiley, Damien Rice, and Thea Gilmore (in that order).

1.

_There's no time for us/ There's no place for us_

The beginning happened easily, relatively speaking. Hiro's nervous smile made her stomach flip in a way that surprised her. He would duck his head and shuffle his feet and she would smile back at him. But he talked about honor and justice and his nervousness disappeared, replaced by a sureness that struck something deeper in Claire, reminding her of past impulses to actually dosomething rather than let everything happen toher all the time.

When she kissed him the first time she felt a little guilty, because she already kind of knew how it would end (and didn't have it in her to tell him just yet).

She never wanted to live forever.

2.

_Word's have no meaning/ When I see where you've been_

Claire's broken his heart, and she isn't even sure how, but Hiro is angry. And desperate, begging her to explain what it is that made her fall in love with him and what could make her fall in love with someone else.

Nearly as desperate, she pleads with him to explain, to tell her what exactly happened in the future to make him feel so uncertain. He refuses, mostly, but the questions he asks make it clear that her future self's choice of relationship has something do with this.

She had tried to tell him not go; something like this seemed like a very real possibility when he suggested he try to visit her future self 75 years into the future. But Hiro had been so ardent, and Claire was having a very hard time imaging a future where she wasn't desperately missing him.

_Do not say you love somebody and then change your mind. This is not like picking a movie,_ he tells her. She thinks it isn't fair that she should be held responsible for choices she hasn't even made yet (but she also sort of understands it, and him).

Living forever totally sucks.

3.

_I used to think if I could realize I'd die/ Then I would be a lot nicer/ Used to believe in a lot more/ Now i just see straight ahead_

Just as she never really doubted Hiro's intentions, she never really doubts Adam's, but for far different reasons. While Hiro was all small smiles and avoided eye contact, Adam was steady: eyes that locked onto hers, hands that were never afraid to reach for her arms or shoulders or face and fingers that were anything but unsure. But Adam also speaks of causes with a convection and certainty that reminds of her Hiro. Even she knows that is a horrible reason to go down this particular road, but she figures being invulnerable gives her the right to be a little self destructive.

When she kisses him she only feels guilty because she knows Peter probably won't like it. That's much easier to deal with (even if he is the only family she has left), because Peter has forever to get over it.

She feels the memory of Hiro's voice fade, or maybe blend into Adam's. The reasons she fell for Hiro become nearly as hazy as the jumbled, faded memories of each voice of conviction that every male she ever loved has had.

She wishes she could pull the voices apart; she's also glad that she can't. Even though those voices have faded and blurred she's sure more than a few of them would have some things to say about who she's been kissing and why.

She thinks maybe in time those voices will fade away, and that maybe the only thing keeping that from happening is the note of familiar dedication she hears when Adam speaks about humanity, even if Adams speeches still cause her skin to crawl.

She figures she has forever to get past that (and maybe that's the scariest part of it all).  
_  
_

4.

_Well I know I make you cry /And I know sometimes you wanna die /But do you really feel alive/  
Without me?_

Love's bound to change when you've got forever to let it do so. It's the one thing Claire's certain of; the one thing years of experience have taught her. It doesn't matter if you love someone who can disappear in one time and appear in another or if you love someone who will never disappear. The principal remains.

Even if she _does_ remember that she loves Hiro when she sees him for the first time in years, still relatively young and imbued with that undeniably appealing sincerity, it is his equally attractive (and destructive) sensitivity and the evidence of Adam scattered around her apartment that will cause the argument that she now vividly remembers from 75 years ago.

So the timeless girl curses time, and recalls what her birth mother once told her as she spoke about Nathan - _love makes the time pass, but, Claire, time makes love pass. _

_5. _

_And I held the future up to a looking glass/ It bears a striking resemblance/ To the embers of the past_

Adams shows up at her home a few hours after Hiro leaves it. She's just finished wiping a few tears and he does not notice, frustrated with some new evil he sees in mankind. She laughs a little too herself, thinking about the irony of that fact that she is sleeping with the man that everyone but her believes is reformed. ( He tells her once that the only reason that he doesn't _really _renew his plans for apocalypse is because if she sees something good in people that has to count for something. She's not sure that qualifies as reformation.)

For a moment she thinks about telling him that Hiro has just been there, just because she knows that it will get his attention. Instead she stands there, quiet and thinking about how Hiro was standing only a few steps away from where Adam now is.

"Claire," she barely notices the pause in his tirade until he's standing in front of her, leaning down so his face isn't far from hers. "Has something happened?"

"I," she pauses, taking a breath while she tries to figure out what she wants to say, "saw someone I haven't seen for a long time."

He tilts his head in confusion, trying to think of who of the people she hasn't seen in a long time wouldn't be dead, or close to dead. Then it becomes obvious. "Hiro." (Adam has some knowledge of her and Hiro, but only because he found an old photograph stuffed in the back of her closet. He yelled for hours, smashed the picture frame against a table, and disappeared for a couple of days.)

"I should have remembered that he was coming sometime soon." She puffs out something that almost sounds like a laugh. "I still don't know how he even knew where to look for me." He stares at her blankly. "You're mad now."

He straightens, "I'm not mad I - I just want to get away from _him._"

"Adam, Hiro is not like you think he is. He's…good."

Adam's jaw clenches. "No he _isn't_. No one is."

"Yes, everyone is evil but us superior beings, right? I've heard this speech before."

He quiets. "We're bad too." She doesn't say anything so he continues, "How hard did you try to stop him when he left?" She remains quiet, her face blank, so he continues, "Did you even feel it worth remembering that he was coming to see you?"

They're silent again, except for the sound of Adam's deep, unsteady breaths. She finally reaches for his hand and says, "You try to pretend that all this stuff about how bad the world is doesn't really come back to him, but…" Claire trials off when she realizes she doesn't really have anything to add to that.  


She thinks it's so painfully fitting that her and Adam ended up with each other - after they've both crossed their fingers and hoped that time and lives filled with other things (and people) would make them forget about what it feels like to have love get away from you.

They are trying to get away from Hiro for different reasons. She wants to forget that she loved him and Adam wants to forget that he stole love from him, but in the end it all comes down love and time and hoping that the same crap doesn't follow you around everywhere. (Maybe it comes down to Hiro too, because when love is connected to someone who can exist outside of time it's bound to make the passing of love a little more complicated)

Adam pulls her closer to him and kisses the top of her head and she tries to feel a little better, even though she knows that when you live forever the same crap will never leave you alone.

The End.

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